An online journal by Angie Lomas.

What to expect in Haiti

This is an email we just received Tim Fritson, from one of our youth pastors at PV, who is already down in Haiti…this is a bit of what my team can expect when we go down February 18-23. To help me financially get to Haiti or for more information about my trip, read the blog entries below. Thanks.

Whew…I don’t even know where to begin.

We flew out of the DR at midnight on Sunday and got into Santa Domingo at about 3:00 am. From there we took a dreadfully long bus ride across the boarder (amazingly with no trouble there) into Haiti. We crossed at about 6:45 am.

15 minutes into Haiti we had a run in with some Haitians trying to get to the boarder to leave the country. The situation got semi-tense, but with some calm and consistent French, I was able to keep it from escalating beyond control.

We got to Croix des Bougets about 10:00 am Monday. Once there we were debriefed and told that eventually we would head to Les Cayes. About a fourth of our team stayed though, to continue making runs into the city and rescue kids. First, we worked with the kids there though and were able to provide care to about 50 out of the 250 kids there. They made two runs into the city while we were there, bringing back about 10 kids total. The sight was very heart wrenching. At about 3:00 yesterday afternoon, we loaded back up into another bus and had to cross the country to get to Les Cayes. We spent about 2 hours in Port au Prince proper. The experience was surreal. So many people; so much destruction; no way to even begin helping. We did what we could for a few people in a tent-like village in the city, then loaded back up because we needed to make the drive down to Les Cayes.

The roads were terrible. We had to stop and move stuff multiple times.

The roads were broke in half in multiple places. We arrived into Les Cayes at about 9:15. We get to sleep indoors here, which is nice.

The city is typically about 300,000 people, but 150,000 folks fled down here after the earthquake. There are people everywhere. The country is in the second spike of health issues – dehydration, malnutrition, terrible infections. I’ll be working right alongside the doctors translating as the go. Who knows what we’ll see. We were told that mortality rate among the patients seen down here is over 60%.

That’s going to be rough.

I’ll try to update again at some point, but I don. Know when. Forward this on to those who you think would appreciate reading it.

Love you guys,

Tim

The trip payment is due in full February 10. $1700+ ($1500 for the trip + $200+ for shots) in 2 weeks. With God, nothing is impossible. There are two ways to donate: